A shocking amount of humpback whales
have washed up along the East Coast
over the last couple of months.
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26 whales in total
have been stranded since last January,
and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration
has declared it:
an 'Unusual Mortality Event'.
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The mystery surrounding these events
has unfortunately led to people
turning to pseudoscience and disinformation
to use these whales' deaths for their own gain.
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I'm KP - a marine biologist
with a decade's worth of experience
working with marine mammals.
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And today we're going to
debunk some of this disinformation,
and hopefully shed some light
on what is really going on
behind these seemingly unusual whale strandings.
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Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act,
an Unusual Mortality Event is defined as
a stranding that is unexpected,
involves a significant die-off of
any marine mammal population,
and demands immediate response.
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According to the NOAA,
"understanding and investigating
unusual mortality events is crucial
because they can be indicators of ocean health
and they can give insight
into larger environmental issues
which may also have implications for human health."
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One popular theory floating around
is that the offshore wind farms
are behind this string of whale fatalities.
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Several mayors and congressmen
have called for a moratorium
on all offshore wind activity.
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They're backed by an advocacy group
called Clean Ocean Action
who said in a statement:
"this alarming number of deaths is unprecedented
and in the last half century,
the only unique factor from previous years
is the excessive scope, scale, and magnitude
of offshore wind activity in the region."
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(KP whispers: "Lies!")
Oh.
The thinking goes that
the noise pollution created by the sonar
and sounds used to map out the ocean floor
permanently damages the whale's
ability to navigate and communicate.
It is true that noise pollution is a very serious issue.
Baleen whales like humpback whales
use sound to communicate with
potential mates, their offspring, or feeding partners.
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Rising noise pollution can absolutely
have a negative impact on these behaviors.
However, according to the Center for Biodiversity,
the top three loudest
and most disruptive ocean noises
are from military sonar,
oil exploration,
and commercial shipping.
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Notice that wind farm exploration
did not make the list.
That's because the acoustic instruments
used by wind projects
are significantly less sound-intensive
than the seismic air guns
used by offshore oil and gas operations
that need to penetrate deeper into the seabed.
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Federal regulations also mandate that
surveying and construction vessels
have multiple observers onboard
watching for whales, dolphins,
and other marine mammals,
and call for work stoppages
when these animals are present in the area
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This campaign to blame green energy
for the recent spike in whale deaths
has been dismissed by marine biologists
as nothing more than a
cynical disinformation campaign
against offshore wind power.
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Because there is no actual evidence
that wind farms affect marine mammals.
Let's take a look at the numbers.
The United States has just two
operational offshore wind farms
with only seven turbines combined.
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In contrast, the UK has 2,652 offshore wind turbines.
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But the yearly number of stranded whales
are roughly the same.
See where I'm going with this?
The math is not 'mathing' here.
And necropsies were performed
on the whales that washed up on the UK shores,
and so far, there has not been a shred of evidence
that the wind farms are to blame.
For those of you new to the terminology,
a necropsy is what we call a non-human autopsy,
and it is the preferred term in veterinary medicine.
But if it's not wind farms,
then what is behind the unusual mortality event?
Well, the whales who washed up on the East Coast
have been necropsied as well.
According to the NOAA,
there have been 178 unusual mortalities since 2016.
Almost half of the necropsied whales
were hit by vessels
and showed evidence of blunt force trauma.
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And the second leading cause of death
was entanglement in fishing lines
such as lobster and crab traps.
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This isn't new.
Ship strikes and entanglements have long been
the leading cause of death in marine mammals.
Even this unusual mortality event isn't new.
It began in 2016 and reached its peak in 2017
when 78 Baleen whales
washed up on the Atlantic coast.
Surprisingly, some scientists actually see this
as evidence of something positive.
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Let me explain.
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Humpback whales were first officially protected
when The Endangered Species Act
passed into law in 1973.
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At the time, there were only
10 - 15,000 humpback whales left in our oceans.
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They have since rebounded
and current estimated populations
are around 85,000 individuals.
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So this seeming increase in deaths
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could just suggest there are more animals out there!
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Even better, whale deaths are
actually on the decline,
and have mostly returned to levels seen before 2016.
However, these whales are still endangered.
Especially the North Atlantic right whales,
whose biggest threat is
entanglement from vertical fishing lines.
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There are less than 340 individuals left in our oceans,
and only around 100 breeding females.
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Which led to Monterey Bay Aquarium
putting Atlantic Lobster on the seafood red list,
which I talk about in this video right up here.
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I did that right?
(DoubleAgentXV in background: "You did that right")
Perfect.
And those lawmakers who
want a moratorium on wind farms -
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what was their position on Monterey Bay Aquarium
red-listing Atlantic Lobster
to protect the critically endangered right whales?
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Oh right - they thought it was nonsense,
and introduced legislation
to strip Monterey Bay of federal funding.
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And the advocacy group
opposed to offshore wind farms,
Clean Ocean Action -
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has ties to offshore oil and gas.
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So while I do believe that we should always
be concerned when something in our oceans
shows a negative change,
I think in this case,
some groups of people
are trying to use a rather mundane news story
about whales being hit by boats
into a reason to abandon green energy operations.
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What do you think?
Let me know in the descriptions down below.
And if you like the videos,
don't forget to hit that 'like' and 'subscribe' button.
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We'll see you next time.
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And necra- decroopsies!
(KP laughs)
Let's revisit that one! (laughing)
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And necropsies were performed
on the whales that washed up-
I shouldn't be like laughing (fake laughs)
Ok.
They're backed by an advocacy group called
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I keep wanting to say 'known as'
and I can just do that.
I can just do that.
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They're backed by an advosc-
pff.
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Federal regulations also mandate that severely...
no, that's not the word.
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This campaign to blame green energy
for the recent spike of whale deaths
has been dismissed by marine biologists
as nothing more
than a cynical disinformation...campaign
(KP growls)
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